p At a public meeting in 1817, Owen addressed these remarks to his audience: "My friends, I tell you that hitherto you have been prevented from even knowing what happiness really is, solely in consequence of the errors—gross errors—that have been combined with the fundamental notions of every religion that has hitherto been taught to men. And, in consequence, they have made man the most inconsistent, and the most miserable being in existence. By the errors of these systems he has been made a weak imbecile animal; a furious bigot and fanatic; or a miserable hypocrite."  [543•*  Words like these had not been heard before in Britain, and they were sufficient to arouse the indignation of all " respectable" men against Owen. He himself saw that "respectable people" had begun to frown on him as a blasphemer. But this did not in any way lessen his frankness or his faith in the good will of the powers 544 that be. In October 1830, he delivered two lectures "on genuine religion”. These lectures give but a vague idea of the distinguishing features of “true” religious doctrine.  [544•*  But for all that they are clear evidence of Owen’s deep contempt for all "hitherto existing religions”. In the first lecture, he declared them to be the sole source of the disunion, mutual hatred and crime that darkened human life. In the second, he said that they had turned the world into one great madhouse. And he demonstrated that it was urgently necessary to take measures to fight them. This again was more,than enough to infuriate all’jthe “respectable” gentlemen of the United Kingdom. It might seem that Owen himself ought to have understood that none of them could approve of measures against religions. But it was just this that he did not want to understand.

p In the second lecture he said that people who had cognised truth were morally bound to help the government to put it into effect. He then invited his audience to petition the King and both Houses of Parliament to fight religions. The draft petition took for granted that the King wished nothing better than the happiness of his subjects, but that their happiness could only be achieved by substituting for the present unnatural religion, in which, unfortunately, they continue to be educated, a religion of truth and nature. Finally, this religion could triumph without danger to society or, at the very most, only with some temporary inconveniences. Hence the King should use his high position to induce his Ministers to examine the role of religion in regard to the formation of the human character. The petition to both Houses of Parliament was couched in the same spirit.  [544•**  The audience endorsed Owen’s draft petitions. Needless to say, the petitions brought no advantage whatsoever to Owen’s cause.

p Religious concepts formed on a given social basis sanction this basis. Whoever attacks religion shakes its social basis. The guardians of order are therefore never disposed to toleration where the question of religious convictions is concerned. They are even less disposed to fight religion. Owen overlooked this. And that meant that he was unable to draw all the practical conclusions following from his own teaching on the formation of the human character.

p If the character of every given person is determined by the conditions of his upbringing, it is obvious that the character of 545 each particular social class is determined by its position in society. A class that lives on the exploitation of other classes will always be ready to defend social injustice, and not to rebel against it. In as much as Owen hoped to move the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie to reforms that would have ended the class division of society, without knowing it he came up against the same contradiction that had thwarted eighteenth-century materialist philosophy. This philosophy taught that man, with all his opinions and habits, is the product of the social environment. And at the same time it did not cease to repeat that the social environment with all its properties is determined by people’s opinion. "C’est 1’opinion, qui gouverne le monde,” said the materialists, and with them all the Enlighteners of the eighteenth century. Hence their appeals to more or less enlightened despots, for they firmly believed in the force of “opinion”. Robert Owen was just as firm a believer in “opinion”. As a follower of the eighteenth-century materialists, he repeated word for word after them that "opinions govern the world".  [545•*  Following their example, he tried to enlighten the “governors”. In regard to the working class, he was evidently guided for a long time by the impressions he had absorbed in New Lanark. He tried with all his might to help the "working poor”, but he had no faith in their independent activity. And, having no faith in their independent activity, he could recommend to them only one course: never to enter into conflict with the rich, but to conduct themselves in such a way that the rich would not be afraid of taking the initiative for social reform. In April 1819, he published in the newspapers "An Address to the Working Classes".  [545•**  Noting with regret that the working classes were filled with anger at their condition, he repeated that the character of man is determined by his social environment. Remembering this, the workers should not in his opinion blame the “rich” for their attitude to the “poor”. The rich will but one thing: to retain their privileged social status. And the workers must respect that desire. What was more, should the privileged wish to acquire still more wealth, the workers must not oppose them. It was essential to occupy oneself not with the past but with the future, that is to say, to concentrate all attention on social reform. The reader may well ask what new element could be brought about by a reform that not only preserved privileges but enriched the privileged even more. The point is, however, that according to Owen the colossal productive forces now at the disposal of mankind would recompense the workers for all their concessions, if only these 546 productive forces were utilised in a planned way. Owen—like Rodbertus later on—did not insist that the workers should receive the whole product of their labour, but only their share of the product should not be too small. As we see, his communism was reconciled to a certain social inequality; but this inequality had to be under social control, and should not go beyond the limits established by society. Owen was convinced that the rich and the poor, the governors and the governed, had really but one interest.  [546•*  Until the very end of his life, he was a staunch advocate of social peace.

p Every class struggle is a political struggle. He who is against the struggle of classes will naturally not attach any importance to their political actions. It is not surprising that Owen was opposed to Parliamentary reform. He found that, in general, electoral rights were "not desirable"  [546•**  until such times as the people received proper education; he did not favour the democratic and republican aspirations of his time. He thought that if the republicans and democrats ceased threatening the governments there would in all probability be a beneficial change in the government of the world.  [546•*** 

p Owen was never a member of the Chartist movement,^^269^^ then fighting for full political rights for the workers. But since the upper classes did not evince the least desire to support his plans for social reform, willy-nilly he ultimately had to set his hopes on the workers’ movement. In the early thirties, when this movement broadened out and even became menacing, Owen endeavoured to use the growing strength of the proletariat to achieve his cherished ideas. In September 1832, he organised an "equitable labour exchange bazaar”,  [546•****  as he called it, in London; almost simultaneously with this he entered into close relations with the trades unions. However, here too the practical results did not measure up to his expectations.

p Equitable exchange meant the exchange of goods according to the utmost of labour expended in their production. But if a particular product did not correspond to social demand, no one would buy it and the labour spent in its production would have gone for nothing. In order that products should alwaysbe exchangeable proportionally to the sum of labour embodied in each—in other words, in order that the law of value should not operate through a constant fluctuation of prices—planned organisation of production was essential. Production must be so organised that the work of each producer be consciously directed to satisfy 547 definite social needs. So long as this is not the case, fluctuation of prices is unavoidable which means that "equitable exchange" is also impossible. But when this planned production is functioning, there will be no necessity for "equitable exchange”, because the products will no longer be exchanged one for the- other; they will be distributed at rates determined by society among its members. The "equitable exchange bazaars"  [547•*  were evidence that Owen and his followers, for all their interest in economic questions, still did not understand the difference between commodity (unorganised) production on the one hand and communist ( organised) production on the other.

p In aligning himself with the trades unions, Owen hoped they would help him rapidly to build a whole range of co-operatives throughout the country, which would be the basis of the new social system. In accordance with his constant conviction, the social revolution had to be accomplished without struggle of any kind. In striving for this, Owen wished to transform an instrument of class struggle—which the trades unions always are to some extent or other—into an instrument of peaceful social reform. This plan, however, was quite Utopian. Owen soon realised that he and the trades unions were moving along different paths: the same trades unions which were most sympathetic of all to the co-operative idea were then preparing with special energy for a general strike, something that never at any time or anywhere was possible without infringing social peace.  [547•** 

p Much greater practical success came the way of Owen and his followers in the sphere of consumers’ societies. Owen himself was not enthusiastic about these societies, which he regarded as very close to "trading companies".

p I have outlined Owen’s activity in such detail because it reflects so vividly both the strong and weak sides of Utopian socialism. Having done so, I am now able to confine myself to brief references to these in my further presentation.

p Some investigators think that Owen’s influence brought noadvantage to the British labour movement. This is an enormous, strange and unpardonable error. Owen, an indefatigable propagandist of his ideas, awakened the thoughts of the working class, placing before it the most important—fundamental—problems of the social structure and providing it with much data for the 548 corect solution of these problems, at least in theory. If his practical ractivity in general was Utopian in character, it must be admitted that here, too, he sometimes gave his contemporaries extremely useful lessons. He was the true father of the British co-operative movement. There was absolutely nothing Utopian about his demand for factory legislation. Nor was there anything Utopian about his suggestions on the need to provide at least elementary schooling for the children and young persons working in the factories. In turning his back on politics and condemning the class struggle, he was of course very much in error. It is remarkable, though, that the workers who were attracted by his message were able to correct his mistakes. In assimilating Owen’s cooperative and, to some extent, communist ideas, the workers simultaneously took an active part in the political movement of the British proletariat at that time. At least the most gifted of them: Lovett, Hetherington, Watson, and others did so.  [548•* 

p To all this should be added that in his fearless advocacy of "true religion" and rational relations between the sexes, Owen influenced the development of the workers’ consciousness not in the social field alone.  [548•** 

His immediate influence was felt not only in Great Britain and Ireland but also in the United States of America.  [548•***